


home is where you are

by driedflowers



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-17 03:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5852143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedflowers/pseuds/driedflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a series of (unrelated) ficlets written for Femslash February.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's snowing outside; gloves

**Author's Note:**

> The prompts come from [this post](http://wrenegadeandmagicath.tumblr.com/post/138188695281/femslash-february). Each chapter title is the situation and the prompt. (Very creative, I know.)
> 
> The title of the work is from Forever and Ever by He is We. (it happens to be the line directly before "kinda tragic that I left your side," which is the title of something else I've posted.)

“Have you ever thought it’s really weird that there are all these palm trees around?”  Frankie asks. “We’re in Color- _aah-_ do.” She slips on the ice in the middle of her sentence, one of her hands grabbing for Britta’s in an effort to steady herself.

“Abed said it’s because of budget cuts.” Britta wrinkles her forehead in thought and squeezes Frankie’s hand. “I kind of just stopped questioning stuff like that after a while.” She shrugs.

Frankie nods. The beam of her flashlight catches on snowflakes in the near-pitch darkness, and while it looks very pretty, the snow is actually making it a lot harder to see. Which is bad, because they need to find the dean’s hamster, pronto. That’s why they’re out here, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a  _snowstorm_. The dean promised hot cocoa and marshmallows at the end of the search party, and at the rate Frankie’s fingers are going numb, they had better be good.

Britta rubs her gloved thumb in slow circles over the back of Frankie’s hand, but it doesn’t help much.

“Hold on a second.” They stop walking. Frankie holds her flashlight under her arm and cups her hands in front of her face, blowing warm air into them.

“Wait, shit,” Britta says, reaching into her pocket. She rummages around for a second, and then pulls out two misshapen gray tangles of yarn. “I knitted you these gloves, and I kept forgetting to give them to you...”

Frankie is touched. But also extremely cold, so she only manages a quick thank you and a peck on Britta’s cheek before grabbing the gloves. They’re a little lumpy, but the yarn is thick, and she can feel blood entering her fingers again. She claps her hands a few times to help the circulation. And to sound official, because why not.

“Okay, let’s find Mr. Cheese before he becomes Mr. Freeze.”

A smile creeps across Britta’s face. “God, I love you,” she murmurs, moving aside Frankie’s scarf and pulling her in for a kiss.


	2. Person A adopts a pet; hugs

Frankie glances at the clock above her dining room table. “Dammit,” she mutters, shoving papers and folders into her bag and trying to put on her shoes at the same time. She rushes out the door and into her car, taps her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently through three red lights, and finally arrives at Greendale, hoping she doesn’t look as bedraggled as she feels.

Even though she’s ten minutes later than she’d like to be, Frankie still manages to set her binder down at her seat at the table before everyone else arrives. Britta and Chang are the only ones there, and they seem to be talking about tomato yields in various states, but Britta breaks off mid-sentence when Frankie takes off her coat.

“Did you get a cat?” Britta says. Frankie looks down; her black shirt is covered in bright white hair. “How many eyes does it have?”

She sighs. “Yes. I adopted her last week, to have a little company. Eyes? What do—” The rest of her sentence is lost as Britta practically jumps out of her chair to crush Frankie in an embrace.

“You have no idea how exhausting it is to be the only cat person in the group,” Britta is saying. Frankie thinks there might be more, but it’s hard to focus on Britta’s words when her soft hair is touching Frankie’s skin, and her eyes might close a little bit as she awkwardly pats Britta on the shoulder.

Britta finally breaks the hug to smirk at her. “I am going to be at your apartment like all the time.”

Frankie opens her mouth to protest, but decides that that doesn’t sound bad at all.


	3. Person A has an assessment coming up and needs to revise; sleepy

Britta’s history final is tomorrow, and she really did mean to start studying before 10 pm tonight, but things have been busy, alright? There was that protest last week, and making a sign took hours, and on Tuesday there was a really important debate, and then yesterday there was a marathon of  _ Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives _ on the Food Network, and if she didn’t make fun of Guy Fieri on Twitter, who would?

So she’s here now, in the study room, trying to study. She kind of actually took notes for this class, and kind of actually kept them organized in a binder, but the words are blurring into each other now. 

Britta shakes her head to clear it. Okay, this is it. She’s going to read through her notes, and not think about the life decisions that led her to be cramming for a history test at the age of thirty-six. So she does. She reads about ancient Greeks and Romans and gets all the way up through the Tang dynasty before she decides it’s time for a break. It must’ve been an hour, at least. She glances at the clock.

“It’s only been twenty minutes?” Britta groans and puts her head down on the table. Her eyes start to flutter closed, but she fights to keep them open. 

Someone turns out the lights. 

“Hey!” Britta says.

“Sorry, I didn’t—” Frankie starts to say, flicking the lights back on and walking into the room. “Britta. What are you doing here so late?”

“I have a history exam tomorrow morning.” It sounds pretty whiny, but she’s tired.

“Well, staying up all night won’t help you focus tomorrow,” Frankie says. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

Britta stifles a yawn. “Thanks,” she mumbles. “I guess you’re right.”

Frankie helps her gather up her papers, and they walk to her car. Britta leans on the window on the drive home, the glass cool on her face.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine on that exam,” Frankie says when they get to her apartment. Neither one of them moves to open the door. “It looks like you took good notes, paid attention in class.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Frankie says. She looks hesitant to leave, and Britta doesn’t want her to either. If it were any other night, Britta thinks she would invite her in. But it’s not, and she’s exhausted, so she gives a final nod of thanks and unlocks the door. She falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

The next morning, Britta runs into Frankie on her way to the gymnasium for the final. Frankie bids her good luck, and Britta sits down for the exam confident in her history abilities. 

She passes. Not exactly with flying colors, but for Britta Perry, it’s an achievement.


	4. They eat out at McDonald's; hand holding

Tonight is shaping up to be absolutely terrible. First of all, they’re at McDonald’s. That’s a horror story in and of itself. The dean proposed going out to celebrate the completion of the school’s new foosball table (a process much more complicated than it sounds), and the group voted for McDonald’s over Señor Kevin’s, three to two. 

So Britta’s here, sitting next to Frankie in an orange plastic booth, picking at her french fries, which are, incidentally, virtually the only vegetarian option on the menu. 

“Wow, what a great hamburger,” Jeff says, slowly and condescendingly. 

“Oh yeah? Well, say that to your uneaten hamburger buns.” That sounded better in her head. “I mean, you should be miserable because you’re not eating carbs!” 

She makes a face at Jeff, and wishes she could put her head on Frankie’s shoulder. That’s the second reason this night sucks.

Actually, it’s the reason a lot of Save Greendale Committee activities suck. Because, Frankie and Britta have been dating for an entire month, and they still haven’t told the group. That means no sitting next to Frankie at the study room table (although, she’s not sure if she could move her seat anyway, for old times’ sake), no driving home together after nights at the bar, and definitely no putting her head on Frankie’s shoulder at McDonald’s.

It’s been substantially harder to keep this a secret than Britta’s past involvement with Jeff. That was... many things. A mistake, for one. Almost purely carnal, for another. It was as superficial as this is serious. Britta has never felt the urge to hold Jeff’s hand in public, but not taking Frankie’s right now is just about killing her.

So she does it, takes Frankie’s hand underneath the table, and if anyone else notices, they don’t so much as blink. 

Her french fries are cold and soggy, and the smell of hamburgers and french fry oil is kind of making her sick, but Britta’s having a pretty good night.


	5. They attend hogwarts; patronus

Professor Warner claps her hands once and begins to speak as Britta takes out her quill and parchment. “Okay, class, today we’re going to try something a bit more difficult.”

Britta grimaces. Defense Against the Dark Arts is her worst subject. Just the regular difficulty stuff has her fighting for an Acceptable on every assignment.

“Who can tell me what a patronus is?” Several hands go up. “Yes, Ms. Edison.”

Annie answers with a smug smile. “A patronus charm conjures a companion that protects from dementors.”

“Excellent. Five points to Slytherin. So, today we’ll be casting patronuses. It’s fairly simple, on paper: think of a happy memory and say the charm.  _Expecto Patronum!_ ” Professor Warner waves her wand, and a silver turkey pours out of it. Murmurs of awe rumble around the classroom. “I hope you’ve all done the reading, because knowledge of the theory should prove helpful when casting this difficult charm. Now, get to practicing!”

It’s not really a team activity, but the students pair up anyway. Troy and Abed are working together in the corner, Jeff sets down his bag on the empty chair next to Annie, and Britta turns to her left to smile at Frankie. That they’ll be working together is, by now, a given.

“Did you do the reading?” Frankie says.

“Okay, you were literally _with me_ all of last night, you know I didn’t.”

“Well, a girl can dream. Do you want to go first, then? Get it over with?”

“Yeah. Sure,” Britta says, holding her wand aloft. She closes her eyes to search for a happy memory.

It comes to her almost instantaneously. It does all the time, these days. Conjuring up Frankie’s bubbling laughter, her infectious smile, even her reproachful looks is as easy as flipping on a switch.

“ _Expecto Patronum!_ ”

Wispy silver threads flow out of Britta’s wand, arranging themselves in an almost spherical shape. Britta frowns, trying to concentrate them, to concentrate her memories, but after a moment, they fade away.

“Damn,” Britta says, not too softly.

“Ms. Perry.” Britta whirls around to see Professor Warner, who looks amused. “I won’t take points from your house for that expletive, but only because I’m quite impressed with your patronus. That was quite good for a first attempt. Next time, try to focus on one discrete event. Go on, try again.”

Britta shuts her eyes again, fully aware of Professor Warner’s and Frankie’s attention. She lets her thoughts drift again, this time to last night. To kisses and giggles, her hands in Frankie’s dark hair, the adrenaline rushing through her veins. Britta clings to that moment and says, confidently, “ _Expecto Patronum!_ ”

Her eyes snap open in time to see a silver tabby cat leap from her wand. Britta grins at Professor Warner, and she can’t help but blush at Frankie’s raised eyebrow.

“Ten points to Gryffindor.” Professor Warner’s gaze darts between them, and she smiles knowingly. “I see that hanging around with Ms. Dart has had a good influence on you.”

“Yeah. We, um. Study together.” Britta’s silver cat gleams brighter.

Frankie intervenes before she can embarrass herself any further. “Thanks, Professor.” Professor Warner walks off to help someone else. “ _Expecto Patronum!_ ”

The fact that Frankie doesn’t get it on the first try is an enormous ego boost.

Later, when the classroom is filled with gleaming animals, Frankie’s eagle is among the brightest. It flies close to Britta’s cat, which promptly starts chasing it. When the bell rings, Britta almost doesn’t want to put away her wand if it means putting an end to the scene. Almost. But they’re serving treacle tart in the Great Hall tonight, and she can have a laugh with her girlfriend any day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't even planning on doing prompt #15 on the 15th, and it's pretty cool that it just happened that way.
> 
> Also, my rationale for people of all different houses being in the same DADA class is that when they get up to NEWT level stuff there are fewer people in each year taking a specific class, so they mix it. I can't remember whether or not that's canon. But that's my justification.


	6. Person A is a princess; stables

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt is supposed to be for the 18th. 
> 
> This is a product of my love of unorthodox princess stories including everything by the amazing Gail Carson Levine and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede.

It’s tough to be a princess. When your parents actually expect you to run the kingdom when they retire, there’s all sorts of military strategy to learn, diplomacy to practice, official names to memorize. And on top of that, there’s still all the regular princess things, like going to balls and learning how to embroider.

Frankie’s survived it so far, and after sixteen years of training, she’d like to think she’s ready. For what, it’s unclear. Ready for something.

What she’s not ready for is much simpler. An infinite number of things, but more specifically, a prince. Nobody looks good in those frumpy suits they wear, and Prince Vaughn from the kingdom over the lake keeps hinting at his extensive Hacky Sack collection that takes up the entire armory. It’s safe to say that everyone her parents would remotely consider allowing her to marry is, in a word, gross.

Lately, Frankie has found herself spending a lot of time in the stables. It started when she couldn’t sleep one night, and decided to go for a midnight ride. She’d thought the stables would be empty, but there was one stable hand there, a blond girl of about Frankie’s age.

On that first night, Britta helped her saddle a horse and said nothing about it. When Frankie came back a night the next week, she thanked the stable hand for not telling anyone.

“It’s nothing, Your Highness,” Britta said, only Frankie didn’t know her name back then. She didn’t know her name until the next night, when she found herself in the stables again.

“Are you always here, at night?” she’d asked.

“Yes, Your Highness. Someone has to stay with the horses at night. And, someone has to help princesses with unpredictable sleep patterns.” There was a twinkle in her eye.

“What’s your name?” Frankie had said later, as the girl helped her out of the saddle.

“Britta,” she had answered. “I’m Britta, Your Highness.”

“You can call me Frankie.” Reflexively, she’d regretted it. To say this to a palace employee went against everything she’d been taught, all the procedures of formality and hierarchy and monarchy. But the regret was shallow, much shallower than the warmth that flooded through her when Britta tried out the nickname.

Being a princess was a lonely life. Having someone to share it with eased the burden considerably, and Frankie found herself in the stables almost every night. She and Britta started talking, and sometimes Britta would ride with her, or they would spend the night lying on their stomachs in the hay, pretending they were just Frankie and Britta, teenage girls, not Princess Francesca and Anonymous Stable Hand, worlds apart.

It’s been a few days since Frankie’s seen Britta. Her parents are really coming down hard on her, trying to make her choose a husband. But no matter how many times she goes through the stack of papers on the table in front of her, no one sticks out. Therandil is still stuffy, and Mendanbar really takes that gallant hero thing way too far, and Daystar is still naive and inexperienced. None of these men would do well at the helm of her kingdom, and none of their hands in marriage would make her happy.

It’s not just _these_ men, a small voice in the back of her head says. It’s not just these men in whom you have zero interest, it’s all of them. And even if Frankie were ready to acquiese to this little voice, it’s just not done. Princesses marry princes, and that’s the end of it. Maybe the occasional commoner, if he completes some arduous tasks or something, but never a _girl_. Never a stable hand with softly curling blond hair who has done nothing to win the princess’s heart than exist. Never a _girl_.

And Frankie’s definitely never going to decide who to marry, because when she closes her eyes and pictures a white dress, an arch, it’s not Therandil or Vaughn or Mendanbar that waits for her at the end of the aisle. It’s Britta. And it’s impossible.

She picks a prince at random to placate her mother, and goes to the stables that night, for what might be her final time.

There’s nothing to lose anymore, so she tells Britta. All of it.

“It’s okay,” Britta says when Frankie is done talking. “We’ll run away to the Enchanted Forest.” Frankie laughs incredulously, defeatedly. “No, I’m serious! I know this witch with like ten cats, she’d love you.”

“I mean, it’s not being captured by a dragon, but my parents might go for it,” Frankie says. This crazy plot might actually work. “Wait, I need to know. Are you reciprocating my advances because I’m the princess, or because you actually like me?”

Britta rolls her eyes. “I thought we were past that. And I just proposed that we run away together, yes I like you.”

“Good,” Frankie says. When she kisses Britta, it feels like a beginning, not an end. For now, that’s enough to go on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prince names (except for Vaughn) all come from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, as does the unnamed witch with ten cats. Mendanbar and Daystar are actually quite nice men. Therandil is not. He's gross and terrible.


End file.
